Security Council has become ‘an impaired organ’: India at UNGA

At the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), India said that the Security Council has become “an impaired organ.”

"It has been unable to act with credibility essentially due to its unrepresentative nature,” said TS Tirumurti, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN. Without mentioning the name of the countries, the Indian ambassador to UN slammed countries for stalling UN reforms by not allowing the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) process to have basic rules of procedure and records.

“Inside the IGN, nothing has moved for more than a decade except hearing passionate statements on the need for reform. In fact, it has not progressed since it is not only informal but it has no rules of procedure and has no records. For a decade it has remained that way. We are forced to keep our own notes placing a tremendous burden on all small and medium states. The same countries who shed crocodile tears for small and medium states are the same ones denying them even the basic courtesy, which is to help them keep official record of discussions. What happens here has no record and we start again the next year as if nothing has happened. And of course, we don’t even have a single negotiating text. IGN has become like a platform for debate in a university rather than a serious resulted-oriented process in the United Nations consisting of sovereign member states,” he said.

Without mentioning any name, Tirumurti said that a “handful of countries” were stopping the IGN framework from progressing.

“And, why we have come to this pass? That’s because just a handful of countries don’t want us to proceed. They have stopped the IGN from progressing. They are using the IGN as a smoke-screen to stop themselves from being identified by paying lip-service to Security Council reform. The conditions they are laying out are impossible to fulfil – which is full consensus of all member states. Ironically, this is happening at a time when we were in a tearing hurry last week to give ourselves e-voting rights. But for IGN, they want no voting, leave alone e-voting, but only full consensus!” he said.

Directly or indirectly, Tirumurti was slamming China, as it is the only permanent member of the UNSC which has not voiced for India’s permanent membership. All other four permanent nations, the US, Russia, the United Kingdom and France have supported India's permanent membership at UNSC.

Tirumurti said that there is no mention of the words "instil new life in the discussions" on the reform of the UN Security Council in the letter of the PGA (President of the General Assembly) which gives the mandate given to the co-facilitators. “I hope we have not started distancing ourselves from the UN@75 declaration even before the ink is dry,” he said..